Four years after retiring early at 47, Jason reflects on the key lessons he wishes he knew beforehand. He discusses his portfolio, spending habits, healthcare, mental health, relationships, and more.
Show Notes
Essential Background:
- For more on Jason’s FI journey, check out these episodes centered on his retirement milestones to date: What I Learned in My First Year of “Early Retirement (1 year), My New Life: Two Years After Early Retirement (2 years), and Finding My Way in Early Retirement: A 30 Month Check-In (2.5 years).
- Did you see Jason’s AMA, Ask an Early Retiree Anything! Live Q&A with Jason from Two Sides of FI? There’s no better episode for an unfiltered look at Jason’s first three years after leaving his career behind.
- Year Four of RE had Jason undertake an unexpected adventure, one that he found truly impactful. Learn about his Camino Portugues experience in Retiring Early Made This Possible.
- Healthcare is a topic we continue to return to given how many questions we receive on the topic. Our most recent episode, My Healthcare Costs in Early Retirement (Year 3) provides a detailed account of Jason’s family’s experience on an ACA plan. Don’t miss the links to our earlier episodes in the show notes provided at the same link.
- While only briefly discussed in this episode, Eric and Jason have talked about mental health and wellness before. If you haven’t seen The Health Risks of Early Retirement, you won’t want to miss this honest and open account of Jason’s personal journey. Subsequent to recording this episode, Jason wrote a blog post called “Let’s talk about mental health“. Check it out for additional insight beyond the conversation in this video.
- Both Jason and Eric plan to travel much more in the coming years, now that their children will all be in college. But did they save enough? And how do you know what you will need in the future? In Did We Budget Enough for Travel in Early Retirement? they tackled these and other questions.
Robert Atchley’s Six Phases of Retirement was discussed at the end of our conversation in this episode. While not the original 1976 manuscript, the article linked here is a good summary of the concepts Atchley wrote about. If you are interested in the original text, “The Sociology of Retirement” is available from Amazon. On a related point, this blog post from Can I Retire Yet by Chris Mamula is a good deep dive into the six phases. It’s a worthwhile read.
Have you checked out the Two Sides of FI Discord server? If you’re not familiar, this is an instant messaging social network. Ours is meant to be a community for viewers of our show, as well as a space to discuss all things relation to FIRE. It’s totally open, free of charge, and is anonymous as you’d like. This makes it a safe space to talk about financial topics you might otherwise be sensitive about sharing. Come check it out and see if it fits your interests! There are both desktop and mobile apps available.
Did you know Jason resumed blogging? To be notified of his future posts, please consider subscribing here. He’s also archived his old blog, which documents the first two years after he retired from his career, and started even before Two Sides of FI began. Get more information on those archived posts here.
You can find information on the tools we mention in each episode along with additional information in the Resources section of this site.
- Eric’s business: 30X40 Design Workshop
- Jason’s blog: the next phase is now
- Eric’s YouTube Channel
- Our podcast